A Dangerous Dance (34 page)
“All?” Remy asked, with some idea of keeping him talking.
“Verrol. That lawyer, Barnes.” His voice changed. “Vonda. And her friend. I can't remember her name. The neighbor.”
“Leda Tasker,” Remy said. And they'd just handed her over to him. They told her she'd be safe with them and then handed her over to a killer. He felt Helene's hand on his arm, as if she sensed how hard it was to not hurl himself at Titus. “It was you in the library. You hit me. Your bugs and tracking device. You've been listening to everything we've said and done.”
“Not everything,” he said, “or I'd have known about her...”
“...and killed her already?” Remy looked at him in disgust. “Is there anyone you wouldn't kill?”
“I had to keep Dorothy from finding out...”
“...that you were involved in Magus's death. Why did you do it? You were his bodyguard. It was your job to protect him.”
“It was my job to protect
Dorothy
. She was my daughter, not his! And he was doing the same thing to her that he did to Emma.
Emma
.” His body drooped and he shuddered. “I loved her, you know.”
There was such grief in the way he said it that the words just popped out. “You killed her, too, didn't you?”
His head came up, his gaze distant. He nodded. “She lied to me. She said...”
“...that Dorothy wasn't your daughter?”
Titus nodded. “She wanted to die anyway. She killed Bubba Joe, you know. We don't need her, Dorothy and I. We have each other.”
“She'll hate you when she finds out what you've done,” Remy said.
“She's not going to find out. Everyone will think Darius killed both of you and Emma, too.”
Remy noticed he avoided looking at Helene. It was going to be a difficult kill for him. But how to use that information? There had to be a way to distract him and at least get Helene safely away.
“Helene doesn't deserve to die,” Remy said. “She's done nothing to you and you killed her son.”
Titus shifted, but said, “What's got to be will be.”
“Dorothy loves me and I love her,” Remy said. “This will break her heart.” He wished it were true.
“She'll get over you, just like she got over Magus. She'll have her answer with these papers and we'll put the past behind us, move forward again.”
“And you'll have the money,” Remy said. “Isn't that really what this was all about? You wanted the money so you could compete with Magus for Dorothy's affection. You've felt her pulling away from you, growing away from you and not needing you as much. Then she sent you away, but if we're all dead, you think she'll need you again.”
Titus looked at him, his eyes burning with rage. He may have pushed him too far. The barrel of his automatic pointed at him. His finger started to tighten on the pull.
“But she won't, Titus. Now that I know the truth, it's over. I'll never need you again.” Dorothy stood in the doorway to the room, her face white and shocked, her eyes filled with grief and disbelief.
“You forgave Emma. You even forgave Magus. Why not me?” Titus turned partway toward Dorothy. Now the gun pointed at her.
“Because you aren't sorry for what you've done,” Dorothy said, shifting so that Titus had to turn more toward her and away from Remy and Helene.
Remy looked at Helene, nodding for her to slip out one of the long, narrow windows. She nodded, and started edging toward the window.
“And now you're planning to kill the man I love and a dear, dear friend.”
Remy waited until Helene was out of sight, before taking a couple of steps toward Titus. He swung the gun back his way.
“Don't move. I'll shoot.”
“I'll never, ever forgive you, Titus,” Dorothy said, pulling his attention her way again. “If you cared about me at all, you wouldn't even think about doing something like this.”
“Do you think I wanted to? Why did you have to go digging into the past? Why couldn't you leave it alone? Magus is dead. All you did was stir things up! Make me do...things. Awful things.”
He rubbed his face with his free hand, but he was still too alert, too deadly. Remy used the moment to move a few steps closer. He nodded for Dorothy to get into the hall. She shook her head.
“You took my father and my mother from me.”
“She was going to kill herself anyway and he wasn't your father! I am! I'm your father! Me! Emma loved me! She never loved him.”
“But she didn't,” Remy said, deciding it was time to get his attention again. “She wrote you a letter. That's why I came here last night, to give it to you. She wanted you to be free of the past, not bound by it. She wanted the lies to end.”
“No. She's lying. She lied back then and she's lying now. Lying
bitch
!” He was moving, stepping from one foot to the other, making the gun waver between them, his hands clenching as he cursed her.
Dorothy took a step toward Titus. “Don't you understand, Titus. If you were...are my father, then you took yourself away from me by what you've done? You know me, better than anyone. Do you really think I would condone
murder
?”
He stared at her, his features twisted, his eyes tortured with doubt and rage.
“You didn't do it for me. You did it for yourself. All of it. If you really believed it was the right thing to do, you wouldn't have hidden it from me.” Dorothy looked at him for one, desperate moment, then she said, “If you care about me at all, Titus, you'll leave now. I can't even bear to look at you.”
For a moment, it seemed like sanity might return, but he shook it away, staring at her as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. “You forgave Emma and she abandoned you! But you've got nothing for me, your own father?”
Dorothy frowned. “How could you know about that? You weren't there.”
But Remy knew how.
“He had you bugged,” Remy said. “Or Emma. Or both of you. How long were you going to let Dorothy suffer in that monster's hands, Titus? How long were you going to let him torture her, if you believed she was your daughter?”
“I didn't...I wasn't...” But Remy noticed he couldn't look at her. He pointed the gun at Remy. “Shut up! Just shut up! I need to think!”
Tears were streaming down Dorothy's face now. “How could you listen to what he did to me and do nothing?”
Titus took a step toward her. “I didn't want to! But he was right. You needed to learn. You needed to understand that sometimes people have to do things. In case...”
“...I found out? And then you were going to sweep in and rescue me? Accept my gratitude? Be the big hero so I'd like you
best
again? What kind of monster are you? I thought you were...kind and good and decent.” Dorothy stared at him through her tears. “You
bastard
! If you really were my father, you'd never have done that to me.
You're not my father
. I can prove you're not my father. Now get out of my house and out of my life! Get out!”
Remy saw the shift of focus in his eyes. He'd ceased to exist for Titus, but so had Dorothy. He pointed the gun at her heart, as Remy dove at him.
“You're an ungrateful bitch, just like your mother!”
The gun went off as Remy caught him midsection. They both crashed to the ground, rolling back and forth, a tangle of kicking legs and punching fists. He was smaller than Remy, but well trained and desperate. Remy was desperate, too, for them to survive, for a chance to tell Dorothy he loved her.
Titus got his hands around Remy's throat, his thumbs driving for his backbone. Remy tried to pry his hands loose, as stars starting spinning across his view. He dug his thumb into Titus's eye, and heaved his back up, flipping Titus over the top of his head. He rolled over and sprang to his feet, but Titus was already up. They both saw the gun and dived for it at the same time. Remy was a fraction of a second behind. Titus pulled clear, the gun in his hand, but the sound of a siren broke through his rage, turning it to panic.
“How did they know?”
“They brought me here,” Dorothy said. “I opened the gate for them. I was worried when it wouldn't work. It's over. Give me the gun, Titus. At least you can be at peace.”
Remy stepped in front of Dorothy, trying the human shield thing again as he felt an odd rush of cold air brush past him. Titus wasn't looking at them anymore. He was staring at point beyond to their right, his eyes widening in horror.
“I was a better father to her than you were,” he shrieked, then lifted the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Remy flinched away from the sight, trying to block it for Dorothy. He grabbed her and pushed them both around the corner into the hall.
“Are you all right?” he asked, clinging to her because he couldn't stop himself. He pushed her back, looking for wounds, feeling down her arms, and then grabbing her close again. He felt her nod. “Look, this isn't the time or the place. But the cops will be here in seconds and I don't know when we'll be alone again, so here it is. I love you. I know it breaks the deal, but I do. With all that's happened, I just thought you ought to know.”
Dorothy lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, her eyes wide with wonder, but then she sort of flinched. “There's...stuff...on your face.”
“Damn it, Dorothy—”
She put her hand over his mouth. “I'll just close my eyes.” She did. “I love you, too.”
He bent his head to kiss her, even achieved contact briefly, before the front door burst open.
* * * *
Several hours later, Remy had washed the “stuff” off his face and the cops had been over this new crime scene with the magnifying glass and tweezers. All the evidence was in custody and silence was settling over the house again. They were sitting side by side on the couch in the sitting room that Helene said had been Emma's. Remy had his arm around her and Dorothy was happy to have it there.
“Is that jet of yours anywhere near?” Remy asked.
“Probably. Why?”
“Let's get on it, go to Vegas and get married by Elvis. I've always wanted to get married by Elvis.”
Dorothy stared at him. “Always?”
“Well, at least for the last half an hour.”
She relaxed against him again. “Okay.”
Remy twisted around so he could see her face. “Really?”
“What's the point of having a jet at your beck and call if you can't use it to fly to Vegas and get married by Elvis?”
He chuckled. “True. You do realize he'll be a fake Elvis, don't you?”
Dorothy smiled at him. “Are you sure about that?”
“If you keep looking at me like that, I'm going to have to kiss you again and we have a jet to catch.” He stood up. “Let's do this right.” He grabbed her hands and pulled her up, holding her for a moment before stepping back. So much had been wrong in their lives, he wanted this to be right.
As they passed the room where Titus had killed himself, Dorothy paused by the crime scene tape, still blocking the doorway. “What do you think he saw, just before...”
Remy remembered that cold wind. Had Magus stepped in to save his daughter? Or had Titus's fevered mind just conjured him up. “I don't know.”
Dorothy lifted her face, as if testing the atmosphere. “I used to feel him near me here, but I don't anymore. Oz is at peace, maybe for the first time. I think my parents are at peace with each other, too.”
“For the first time?” Remy asked, with a half teasing smile.
“Well, maybe the second. We know of at least one other time they got together effectively.” She grinned at him.
Remy grinned back. “I was kind of hoping for some of that effective interaction myself, post Elvis, of course.”
Her grin faded. “I love you, Remy Mistral.”
He touched her cheek, his heart contracting in his chest. “Are you ever going to call me plain Remy?”
She smiled the way she had his first day back in Oz. “I'd like to see how
effective
you are first.”
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